Foreword Salutes: The Book Design Review
…and Joseph for finding this:
Joseph says,
I say this is friggin’ brilliant and my favorite of the short year so far. I don’t think I’ve wanted a poster of a book cover this bad in a long time. Please, someone run to the bookstore and get me that designer’s name! :-)
Seconded, agreed about the poster, and seconded. Anyone know the designer?
The Book Design Review continues to improve its scope, and the great coverage (pun intended…;) keeps coming — outstanding. Go, Joseph!!
Posted by Giles, Thursday, January 25, 2007, at 4:42 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design
Blogging to Peak in 2007?
From Ars:
The blogging “trend” could each its peak in 2007, according to a recent Gartner report. The prediction came as part of a larger report of the group’s top 10 predictions for 2007 and beyond, and predicted that the number of active bloggers would hit its all-time high in 2007 and level out soon thereafter.
[…]
However, the company says that the number of bloggers has been steadily growing over the years, and will peak at 100 million bloggers next year. Blog tracking site Technorati defines an “active” blog as one that is updated once every three months, and announced that it was tracking 57 million blogs as of this October, making the “blogosphere” over 100 times larger than it was in 2003. The rate of growth has begun to slow though, according to the company—the number of tracked blogs is now only doubling once every seven-and-a-half months or so compared to doubling every six months as it has in the recent past.
Once every three months!? Sheesh. And I stress when I can’t get an update in three times a week.
Would I love to do more? Sure. If someone can find the accompanying time.…
Posted by Giles, Thursday, December 14, 2006, at 12:13 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Site news | Whatever
Cover I Like Today
House of Meetings:
Wonderful indeed — even if it’s not up to the standard set by the absolutely brilliant UK version.
Cribbed from Joseph’s always-smart Book Design Review. Check out the selection of great covers there ASAP!
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, December 12, 2006, at 8:46 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design | Design
GalleyCat Penguin Poll
[…] the two images that left the biggest impressions on me from the batch of books published this month, a mostly abstract cover for Gravity’s Rainbow by Frank Miller and Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s manga-style images for “Rashomon and 17 Other Stories,” and ask what you think.
I love ’em both! And said so, on their poll. Go vote!
Thanks, Ron.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, October 5, 2006, at 1:23 PM.
Posted to Art | Book and design blogs | Book design
Artdaily.com on Books
Book lovers and aesthetes alike will often cite the material qualities of a book, the cloth covers, glossy pages, rough or gilded edges, or the personal touch that one can experience through a book’s design — even more than a book’s contents — as the basis for the medium’s lasting significance in contemporary society. These characteristics add up to the overall significance of a book as an object to behold, rather than simply a source of information, something appreciated by artists and readers since the first illuminated manuscript was published over ten centuries ago.
From “the first art newspaper on the net,” Off the Shelf: New Forms in Contemporary Artists’ Books. Cool.
Posted by Giles, Friday, September 22, 2006, at 3:59 PM.
Posted to Art | Book and design blogs | Book design | Books, design, art | Libraries
DO: This is My Process
The Design Observer’s Michael Beirut notes, somewhat tongue-in-cheek:
When I do a design project, I begin by listening carefully to you as you talk about your problem and read whatever background material I can find that relates to the issues you face. If you’re lucky, I have also accidentally acquired some firsthand experience with your situation. Somewhere along the way an idea for the design pops into my head from out of the blue. I can’t really explain that part; it’s like magic. Sometimes it even happens before you have a chance to tell me that much about your problem! Now, if it’s a good idea, I try to figure out some strategic justification for the solution so I can explain it to you without relying on good taste you may or may not have. Along the way, I may add some other ideas, either because you made me agree to do so at the outset, or because I’m not sure of the first idea. At any rate, in the earlier phases hopefully I will have gained your trust so that by this point you’re inclined to take my advice. I don’t have any clue how you’d go about proving that my advice is any good except that other people — at least the ones I’ve told you about — have taken my advice in the past and prospered. In other words, could you just sort of, you know…trust me?
Great article. Check it out.
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, September 12, 2006, at 11:36 AM.
Posted to Advertising | Book and design blogs | Business | Design | Jobs | Whatever | Writing
"They Blog"
Kathy writes:
I’m building a blog that’s going to be a simple “Q&A with bloggers”. It’s called They Blog. I feel there are a lot of great blogs out there and I think a lot of readers (and bloggers) out there want to know the writers behind the blogs. I’d like to start with some of my personal favorites and I really hope you’ll take part!
Absolutely! Delighted — it’s a great idea — and more than a little flattered. Thank you.
Read Foreword’s Q&A here.
Posted by Giles, Friday, September 1, 2006, at 12:49 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book people | Books, design, art | Personal
Arranging Books by Color
Rob writes, over at Design Observer:
I have never found the Dewey Decimal Classification system to be an accurate reflection of how books are organized in my own mind — or anybody else’s for that matter. Certainly I understand the DDC’s advantages when when it comes to large-scale collections, but if how we choose to organize our personal effects says something about who we are, then an arbitrary numeric system says very little about me.
[…]
Recently, I stopped by a design studio in my building called Thumb to see my friend Luke Bulman. He’d just reorganized his books by color, and I asked him why he did it. A few reasons that resonated with me, and helped to illuminate his logic.
Read the rest — an interesting post indeed.
Here in my office and library, books are organized according to subject, but not with any recognizable system. Type books are together, books about book design are together, then books about types of art, etc. It is, as Rob suggests, organized according to the way that works best for the user — me.
How are your books arranged?
Those of you with good memories will remember one subject of Rob’s post being mentioned here on Foreword back in 2004.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, August 30, 2006, at 9:45 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Books | Books, design, art | Libraries | Whatever
Designorati and Slashdot
Stopped by Designorati yesterday evening, only to discover a no site and a note that it had been Slashdotted, an expression meaning that a link from the popular geek site Slashdot had overwhelmed its servers. Checked Slashdot to see what it was, but didn’t find anything.
Still said that when I checked a few minutes ago. But it turns out the problem was mine — I’d bookmarked the index.html location, but if you go to the “regular” site (just designorati.com, with nothing after the .com), it works just fine.
Letting you know, just in case.…
Posted by Giles, Thursday, August 3, 2006, at 3:13 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs
Interview with Penguin's Paul Buckley
…over at Hear, Hear:
No matter what you’re selling - a product, an idea or a skill - the presentation is just as important as the thing itself. Your customers will only do so much research (if at all) when purchasing your product, and when presented with similar choices, they will choose the one they feel most comfortable with. And that decision is most likely based on the packaging. Nothing illustrates this better than the experience of shopping for new books: before we even bother to read the description on the back of a book we have never heard of, we need to first notice the book and have enough desire to pick it up. And that decision is based on the book’s cover.
In this interview, Hear, Hear chats with an expert in book cover design - Paul Buckley, a veteran art director of one of the largest book publishers in the world, Penguin Group.
The interview will be published in two installments; the first went up yesterday (thanks for letting me know, Shawn!), while the next will be next Friday.
Some great stuff here, too, including a bunch of click-for-larger covers to get in to.… Hear, hear — nicely done!
Posted by Giles, Thursday, July 13, 2006, at 9:39 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design | Book people | Books | Business | Design | Publishing | Type and typography
Glad to See...
— Typographica active again, including a post on Verlag, a new font from Hoefler & Frere-Jones that’s “an expansion of the fonts they created years ago for the Guggenheim.” Nice.
— A redesigned Design Observer. It’s taken me a few days to notice; been busy enough to not be able to delve into the meaty design (nothing like asking Steven Heller when you have a question!) issues (143 comments!!) they post on often enough.
— Ideas, a blog I haven’t seen before (thank you, Jason), posing a great question to a distinguished group of designers: “If you were to do it all again, what would you do differently?”
My favorite answer, from Bill Cahan: “To be honest—I’ve made so many mistakes I am not sure where to begin!”
Boy, does that sound familiar…;)
Posted by Giles, Monday, June 19, 2006, at 12:28 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs
Speaking of Joseph,
…must give credit for this wonderful find — and his notation of the “little plastic people” trend:
Good stuff. I like ’em all — Sarah Vowell and Will Self included.
Nicely done, Joseph!
(For the record — pun intended — the first thing that went through my mind when I saw the phrease “little plastic people” was a Little Plastic Castle. Heheh.)
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, May 31, 2006, at 11:54 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design | Publishing
Uktu Lomlu
For the second year in a row, Uktu has captured the Turkish Society of Graphic Designers “GMK”, TÜYAP Book Cover Design Award — with this:
I like, but have to second Joseph’s question: What’s the white thing in the middle?
Bunches of other cool covers on his blog, which we’ve mentioned before. One of the recent posts stands out, though — with a rejected yet very fun cover design:
See how that cover turned out, and another rejected cover I also like, under Şarkılar bizi söyler… on the main blog page. (Apologies for the lack of a direct link — his blog doesn’t seem to use individual archives.)
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, May 31, 2006, at 11:40 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design
Kool-Aid Never Had It So Good
Another week, another major hat tip to Joseph. This time for some Kool-Aid:
I haven’t seen it in person, But electronically — whew. That’s a 10 in my book. (Well, on my blog…;) Oh, and there’s this:
[Y]ou have to check out Toure’s Web site. How long has it been since you’ve seen the Web site-as-city metaphor? Yeah, me too. 1998.
Bonus: Hardcover (left) and paperback versions of the author’s previous title.
There’s some (soul) food for thought!
Posted by Giles, Monday, April 10, 2006, at 7:09 AM.
Posted to Art | Book and design blogs | Book design | Publishing | Type and typography
Preserved for Posterity
Found myself downright barking at a professional photographer tonight who had argued that restricting access to her work online was better than dealing with a few people out to cause trouble. I felt kinda bad afterwards; I was perhaps a little harsh. (Who? Me?)
I’m not a professional photographer, in the sense that I earn a living exclusively selling photographs, but I do sell photos, deal with photographers’ rights, and sell a creative, copyrighted or work-for-hire product/service that, while not as easily “stolen for use elsewhere,” is subject to a good deal of competition. Above-board, honest people and grab-your-ideas-and-undersell-you-later types alike.
Pushing your work farther and farther out into the world instead of walling it off clearly works. Foreword is my evidence.
Click through to Flickr and look at all the little notes by moving your mouse over the boxes on the photo. They’ll run you through all the stuff in the picture, including the icons, menu items, etc. (Warning: geek alert…;)
Sure, there are hassles. (Looking at new web servers [hosts] this week, for instance, so we can rebuild pages in the middle of the day without timeouts. You wondered why so few mid-day posts…?) It’s definitely a challenge to post regularly with the quality we’d all like to see — and that keeps traffic growing. Oh, and have I mentioned there’s still the rest of the web site to finish?
But it’s so worth it. Glad we can be here together, learning about book design. Whether it’s your first visit or your thousandth, thanks for coming by.
Posted by Giles, Monday, April 10, 2006, at 5:51 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book cover photography | Book design | Books, design, art | Business | Computers | Design | Ethics | Flickr | Freedoms and rights | Jobs | Love | Personal | Photography | Public domain | Publishing | Site news | Technology | Type and typography | Whatever | Writing
Bookslut: Kidd Awkward, Indifferent
But somehow the book winds up with something resembling a positive review:
This awkwardly designed, slippery slab of a book, with a half-split cover and the wingspan of a raven, is a physical ordeal to hold and to read. But it’s a rewarding ordeal. Containing nearly 400 pages of book jacket designs by Chip Kidd, one of the pre-eminent designers of our time, Chip Kidd: Book One is an exhilarating chronicle of how one creative mind can transform a moribund art form merely by taking a slightly sidewise approach to its hidebound conventions.
[…] Kidd’s secret? One of them, at least, is that, as he relates in the accompanying copy, he actually reads the books he’s assigned, from beginning to end; the reason he’s not irritatingly literal is that he’s gratifyingly literate, as the encomiums from some of “his” authors included in this book would indicate. Even John Updike himself contributes a fine introductory essay. It’s too bad, then, that the rest of the book is indifferently written (by Kidd himself) and horribly copy-edited — “loathe” instead of “loath,” “it’s” instead of “its,” “premiere” instead of “premier,” and “who’s” instead of “whose,” to cite just four depressing examples. But if you can look past that and, ironically, this book’s own uncomfortable layout, Book One is a treasury of brilliant book design.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, April 6, 2006, at 12:00 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design | Book people | Books | Books, design, art | Writing
NYTimes Covers
It’s Monday, which means a trip by Book Covers from the NYTimes Book Review around here. Missed last week, so double the fun today!
Including this gem:
J’adore. Spacing, aging, colors, amazing photo arrangement, all of it. Joseph is exactly right about the noose, too.
Update: Crown kindly let me know that David Tran did the cover for Our Town. Nicely done, David!
Great conversation going about A Changed Man, as well — check it out. (Like the Saunders and Disposable American, too. Thanks, Joseph!)
Posted by Giles, Monday, April 3, 2006, at 6:22 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book cover photography | Book design | Books | Type and typography
Bookmarkable: BibioOdyssey
Via BoingBoing comes this fascinating look at books, illustrations, science and history — including lots and lots of historic photos and illustrations, great reading, and tidbits like this:
A History of Color Systems. The above illustration is by Philipp Otto Runge, from 1810, for instance; the text includes ten other historical illustrations and several other reference sources. Very cool.
Check it out.
Posted by Giles, Friday, March 31, 2006, at 2:04 PM.
Posted to Art | Book and design blogs | Books | Books, design, art | Design | Printing | Publishing | Type and typography | Whatever
Cartoon Modern: Final Cover
Todd wrote tonight, asking:
My memory fails me, didn’t you blog about this a while back? …[I]t would be worth posting an update, the cover is looking great.
Yes, I did — and couldn’t agree more, it is looking great:
There are a great many comments at the introduction page, but let me add a few: I like the font choices, love the subtitle and author treatment on the front, like the little details like the handling of the bar code and publisher logo on the full version, and like the smaller cartoons. Only the cityscape on the back stands out as being “too different” for me, but I’m not an expert on the style (and the author says it fits).
Cover design by Brent McFadden. Nicely done, folks!
Posted by Giles, Monday, March 27, 2006, at 8:12 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design | Book people | Publishing
Foreword: Three Years of Book Design Blogging
Many, many moons ago, it seems now, Amanda and I starting putting HTML “blog” posts regarding books and book design up on the ospreydesign.com site. By the end of 2002, we’d decided that we wanted to do it often, if not daily, as a way to expand our knowledge of book design and set me up for leaving Tropicana and go back to doing freelance design — and try to do book design — full-time.
Back then, the header was based on a photo of Haunting Sunshine, a title that’s aged well, and was 550 pixels wide (here scaled to fit):
Then, three years ago this weekend, March 17-21, 2003, Foreword became “offical.” We purchased Movable Type, got it working, enabled comments, and even had rotating headers. The same 550 pixels wide (and again scaled to fit), the site lost the ospreydesign tie-in (and gained a subdomain) in favor of an emphasis on community. This one was my fave:
The photo on the right was to have been a cover for a book Amanda was working on; she spent a good deal of time wandering about Florida gathing information and photos only to abandon it later. (Unfortunately, IMO.) The books on the left were photographed and Photoshopped in-house.
This one got the most questions — and was another Amanda thing:
Nope, I ain’t answering…;)
Readership that first “offical” month averaged 50/day, at least ten of which were family and friends. But it was a start. The plan from there was yearly redesigns, tons of great book design and publishing news and blurbs, and to build that community. I left the juice company in July, and ospreydesign was full-time again. Readership went over 500/day.
In March of ’04, the site gained the so-called “velvet” look:
Reflecting growing average screen sizes, the site grew to first 600, then 650 pixels wide, so we could better accomodate larger cover pictures. Readership climbed over 1000/day, Foreword started flirting with the top-10 returns in Google for “book design,” and life seemed good — for a while.
By October 2004, it was a different site, really, because things were strained to breaking between the two principle bloggers. Yet despite a change in flavor from lighter, quicker “look what I found” items to more thoughts and feelings and design, readership continued to climb.
By March 2005, Amanda and I had seperated, I’d moved to Georgia, and the site got … wider. I flat out didn’t have time to redo it completely, and knew that part of me wanted to do something more radical (read: a new logo), so in the end, I postponed. And you, dear readers, kept coming — over 3000/day, from all corners of the world. Foreword now flirted with the #1 Google return for “book design,” trading spots with Robin Williams and Amazon.
This year, March 2006, posts are sometimes sporadic, Amanda and I are lawyered up — damned shame, if you ask me — but, thanks to the support of my friends, your support, and with the help of a few talented fellow bloggers, the postings continue. The site even got partially redesigned, but ran aground when I realized I didn’t know how to do what I wanted for the main portion and have been too busy to learn — so it hangs. Maybe in a week or two. Might play with a few details here, too; some of the dingbats on the left haven’t worn too well for my taste, the comments still aren’t clear, and a couple of other little things. (As always, suggestions welcome.)
Meanwhile, Foreword’s now solidly #1 in the Google “book design” rank (out of, when searched without quotes, 512 million), readership is over 5000/day, and we’re going to keep posting on book design, books, photography, writing, design, and probably even too much personal stuff. For another three years — or, hopefully, thirty.
Thank you for stopping by. Thank you for commenting. Most of all, thank you being part of the community.
Posted by Giles, Friday, March 17, 2006, at 2:15 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design | Books | Business | Design | Personal | Photography | Site news
The Search's Copyright: A Good Discussion
Tom Evslin, author of hackoff.com, mentioned not too long ago, has a good conversation with John Battelle, author of The Search — which is about Google et al — regarding the copyright warning in his book:
This warning seems directly aimed at Google Book Search, a project which intends to scan the collections of some of the world’s great libraries and make them searchable online. Now you can find similar language on the copyright page of lots of books but John Battelle is a known strong supporter of the value of having almost everything searchable as anyone who reads either his book or his blog knows.
So I emailed John and asked him about the apparent contradiction. He said the decision was the publisher’s (Penguin) decision to make but “I totally disagree with it.” Of course, at the time he signed his contract with Penguin, no one knew that this issue would exist. He readily agreed to talk to me it.
Tom also notes that hackoff.com has been selected for the short-list of titles being considered in the fiction category for the Lulu Blooker Prize. Congrats.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, March 9, 2006, at 1:18 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book people | Book prizes | Books | Business | Computers | Ethics | Freedoms and rights | Libraries | Public domain | Publishing | Technology
Foreword: Connecting Point
Kelly Evans writes:
As I was searching for a cover designer for hackoff.com, I spent a good deal of time on your site. It inspired me and led me to the AIGA website where I found our designer. Long story short, I am just thrilled with the job our designer Rodrigo Corral did!
So I just wanted to email and say thank you so much!
Yeah, that Rodrigo Corral.
The newspaper “look” is tough. (I’ve yet to do one I like, for instance.) This one’s nice when cropped — the ink treatment in the author box is a deft touch — but looks especially good when you can see the whole jacket:
Kelly, it’s our pleasure to have those resources and to be able to help you make those connections with the book design professionals you need. Thank you.
Posted by Giles, Friday, February 17, 2006, at 12:55 PM.
Posted to Advertising | Book and design blogs | Book design | Books, design, art | Business | Design | Publishing | Site news
Foreword asks (again)
Two quick questions, please:
1. How does everyone feel about caps in web addresses? I went a different route (styled the text differently) to acommodate a client’s request to make the web address “stand out more,” rather than the caps (www.WebAddressHere.com). Feel pretty strongly about it, too, but don’t want to be overly anal about it. What have you done when setting covers and interiors?
2. I’ve been getting spammed this week on a massive scale — thousands and thousands of emails directed at least three of the active ospreydesign.com email addresses. If you’ve sent an email our way this week and you haven’t heard back, please accept my apologies and resend when you have a moment.
Part of the problem is a specific type of attachment that makes Entourage — or, as I’ve been calling it these past few days, Enter Rage — crash, often requiring a time-consuming database rebuild. Considering switching to Thunderbird, but I like the integrated calendar/notification part of Entourage. I’m not going to buy the new version of Office or Entourage, and don’t like how Mail’s output looks on PCs or its speed. Other than those, can anyone recommend a good Mac email client? Or a calendar client with notifications more robust than iCal?
Thank you.
Posted by Giles, Friday, February 3, 2006, at 3:29 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design | Business | Computers | Site news | Technology
Thanks, Joe
Coming soon to Foreword: three, perhaps four new covers for David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster, courtesy of some guy from Hustler, WI. (Okay, perhaps that’s not the best reference for the quality of his work…;)
One word: fantastic.
In the meantime, enjoy this beautiful, beautiful cover:
…and go over and get the great context Joe’s put it in. Nicely done. (Check out the American Purgatorio cover, too — lovely.)
Posted by Giles, Friday, January 27, 2006, at 11:29 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design | Books | Books, design, art | Site news
Widen the Debate
Blatently stolen from Joseph, because it’s such a great question:
Well, this should spur some debate. Would you feel comfortable designing this? Under what circumstances?
Let’s talk about it! Here or there, leave a comment. Thanks.
Posted by Giles, Monday, January 23, 2006, at 11:14 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design | Books | Books, design, art | Ethics | Personal | Publishing | Whatever
Surf Those Links
…with Designpedia, from Airbag.
It’s a little web-centric now, but some great stuff nonetheless — please go and add sites you like! (I’ll keep and eye on it, too, and generate a new list for the blogroll (in the left column) before the site is redesigned. As always, suggestions welcome.
Posted by Giles, Sunday, January 22, 2006, at 2:48 PM.
Posted to Art | Book and design blogs | Books, design, art | Computers | Design
Follow-Ups
Trying to break the (bad) habit of posting at four in the morning. Wish me luck…;)
If you haven’t alredy, read yesterday’s entry first. Thanks.
1. The poster went down in flames today. One word: “groupthink.” Monica defended it well, I understand, but that’s the way it goes. They’re going to pick another photo and we’ll try again. (Will save the details for another time, heheh.)
2. Managed to get through the missive last night without mentioning Google. Foreword is the #1 response to a search for book design, with or without quotes. Ahead of Amazon! That’s seriously cool.
That’s also exactly why I’d love to spur more conversation. The description on Google, a community in the service of books and book design, is exactly the purpose. Yes, it’s about me. But it’s also about Todd, Chip, Joseph, J., Amanda, and so many others, past, present, and future. Us. A diverse “community,” in the best sense of the word.
3. I don’t feel the “arrogant American” thing was worded well. I absolutely do not care where you physically work from, what language you grew up speaking, what color you are, or how you live your life. I do care about the quality of your work a great deal, however. And I want to help make it better. Because I learn — we all learn — as part of that process.
No matter who you are or where you’re from, if you’re here, it’s for the same reason I am: to have a greater knowledge and understanding of book design.
When I said “quest for expertise,” I meant “collective quest.” By posting a comment that brings an idea to the table, we all benefit. Good design ideas can, thankfully, transcend cultures — someone, somewhere, will look at that idea, and it will lead to another.
For freelancers in a trade such as book design, the internet is the great equalizer. It no longer matters where you live, only that you know what you’re doing. But that doesn’t remove culture.
Foreword is American-centric because the posters and active commenters are mostly American. I’d love to broaden that — we’d all benefit. Bring something to the table, though. Don’t just ask how to do it. Get involved in how to do it. That’s why we’re all here. Let’s share those ideas.
4. Speaking of sharing, I welcome feedback and ideas for improving how this site actually functions. The redesign includes some improvement in code related to comment moderation and posting, but will mostly be a visual thing. I’m currently going around (and around) regarding “quickie” posts; whether I’d do enough “Hey, this is cool…” posts to justify a third column and the CSS tricks necessary to do that properly. Probably not. Site loading speed’s a consideration, too. Simple code with striking visuals (well, and good posts…;) works best for me.
Now is the best time to talk about it. What would you like to see next? Leave a comment.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, January 19, 2006, at 10:46 PM.
Posted to Art | Book and design blogs | Book cover photography | Book design | Books | Books, design, art | Business | Design | Flickr | Freedoms and rights | Personal | Photography | Publishing | Site news | Whatever | Writing
How do I...? Well, that's the question. Every day.
Been meaning to write this post for a while. It’s a good, mid-life crisis kind of entry. Pull up a chair.
First off, let me apologize — again — for the lack of posting. As I’ve mentioned before and no doubt will again, the past few months have been, shall we say, interesting. In no particular order, I’ve watched my marriage spring a leak, run around entirely, then finally sink into an angry sea; a business that I loved and, for a while, did together with my (former) wife, suddenly get very complicated; moved; been depressed and excited, both about life and work; moved again; rediscovered the joy of photography, Flickr, Photoshop, and, well, how much I suck as a photographer; ran behind in work; caught up; ran behind again; worked too many hours; ate too little; the list goes on. Generally, what was needed to get by and more only when I could get it.
When you’re self-employed or run a business, your personal life is so much more important to the daily goings-on — it’s impossible to take a few days on the employer’s dime to recover (you know what I mean — we’ve all been there). You either produce or you starve.
Perhaps that was on my mind when I named this photograph My Life:
A statue on the grounds of the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, gets overtaken by and slowly cumbles under the most relentless force of all: nature. His expression seems, I think, appropriately horrified.
Worse, there’s the constant swirl of everyday business pressures, including (the current lack of) health insurance, for instance — and don’t even get me started on the IRS. Been around and around with CPAs and have finally had to hire a tax attorney to sort it all out. I’m an artist, for cryin’ out loud — isn’t there someone who can just tell me what to do and where to sign?
Absolutely. With varying sizes of hands out, depending on how good they are. Just like all of us.
I’m thankful to be on my own, occasional contractor aside. I’ve watched people torn apart ethically and profesionally, and met more than a few for whom the money is more important than the ethics or the professionalism, in the quest to sustain employees. Once you’re a “business,” it’s this whole other thing. Like a child, it can be nurtured or exploited, but just like a child, I think that if you’re going to put it out there, it should be the best it can be. My approach (to either, honestly, which is absolutely why I don’t have kids — yet) demands that I not back down from what I believe in. Employees, like children, people who depend on you, make those beliefs seem less like “lines” and more like “gray areas” that can be tread upon when the payroll’s due (or the shareholders want to know why this year’s profits “aren’t growing sufficiently”). It’s easier to starve yourself for what you believe in any day — and I have respect indeed for those that somehow manage the balance.
Parenthetically, my old boss at “Trop” — another family member, and yes, I have been lacking sanity at times — and I have never really talked about my leaving corporate life to forage on my own. Here it is, Tanya: I think we both know I’m more like Blair (yet another family member — long story) than either of us were comfortable with, or were prepared to admit at the time. But we’ll save the details of “days spent working for [a graphics contractor for] a major juice company” for another post…;)
In my life, right now and for the foreseeable future, I need lines that represent those professional and ethical obligations. I need to make sure that every piece put out there, whether here on the blog (present entry excepted, perhaps), on Flickr, or, especially, in the work that I do, is the best it can be. Even if it means bending over backwards, moving, dealing with attorneys, going without food or sleep, whatever’s necessary to make sure those lines stay sharp. With all the crap going on, though, it’s hard to do in a timely manner.
A couple of clients have bailed because of the delays, reschedulings due to personal problems, and the like; one was comepletely professional, and the other was, well, an asshole. (Ahem. Excuse me. It’s late, and we’re being honest.) Either way, though, I understand and wish them well.
Those clients who have hung tough, though — some of whose projects have come through almost on time, and I haven’t even started on the troubles my iMac has given me this week (and will again next — but that’s yet another post) — have gotten some of my best work. That I haven’t been doing a good job of putting up on the web.
Trying to do better with that. Like the poster. Or this catalog, for instance:
A number of things stand out regarding this photo:
— It represents progress graphically. The Sunshine State Cookbook was relatively early project I did for this client, but the page around it is infinitely more sophististicated. Some of that’s better software (ahem — InDesign? Will post on that and the Quark 7 beta soon), but most of it’s several years of working every moment I could to make myself a better designer. (I didn’t do The Florida Bounty, and while I did do Mastering the Art of Florida Seafood, it’s okay if it’s a little lost off the bottom…;)
— It represents progress, especially, in terms of photographic (and Photoshop) skills. I’ve bitched about my camera’s shortcomings, both here and on Flickr, but the reality is that it does exactly what I need: takes good enough pictures. Some are great out of the box, but most need some Photoshop skills. Flickr’s various groups, especially Photoshop, have really allowed me to explore what others have done and work on doing similar things myself.
The shot of the catalog above is entirely fake, and it’s a fake I’m proud of. The catalog page only exists electronically — and is a draft. (Forgive. A recent bad habit.) But it doesn’t seem right to just post the page anymore; now it’s possible to “throttle” it. The lighting and shadows, the subtle (and hopefully natural) curve to the page, the perspective and cropping, the background and background page edges, the three-dimensionality, if you will — all exercises to highlight the design of the page itself. While learning about Photoshop. (25 layers in the .psd file; about half an hour all-inclusive to put together, including deciding to go back and add fanned pages in the background and re-uploading the photo, but a pristine hi-res PDF ain’t a bad starting place for Photoshop experimentation.) Never stop learning.
— It’s absolutely not perfect. The mistake caught on Flickr (see the note) aside, it’s already evolved from its original design and will again. Other mistakes will be found — please comment away! — and probelms solved. I’m sure, too, that months or years from now I’ll look back both on the catalog and photo and perhaps wish I’d done something differently. But that’s what evolution’s about.
— It (and My Life, above) represent the first photos posted here actually hosted by Flickr. Might cut down on the 4-5GB of bandwidth Foreword pushes through the internet every month — or, at least, source part of it from someone with better servers…;)
The “self-taught” thing is no small deal, either. I have a college degree, but not in graphic design. I figured out in high school that I was as good — okay, better — at making papers look good than writing the content. (Still probably true. Witness this post, for instance.) I figured out how to make money off of that skill on college, and ospreydesign was born, to use the child analogy again, nearly twenty years ago. Everything since then has been fits and stumbles, exploration and learning, conferences and classes, and most importantly, problems solved against deadlines.
This blog wasn’t started because of expertise in book design. It was started as a quest for expertise in book design. It remains, and will remain, that way.
Which brings me back to the beginning: “How do I?” “How did I?”
Ben writes (forgive for quoting without asking first):
Hello, I am painter, photographer, and draftsmen who has created many images that would be suitable for the covers of books, and I was wondering how one gets into the business. If you could give me any information, I’d be very thankful.
English might be a second language here. Lots of Foreword’s readers are from overseas. Not going to nail him for the poor wording, but it might be something to improve before going to look for, say, a prospective paying U.S. client. I wouldn’t dream of going to another country and begging for work this culturally aware, for lack of a better term, without knowing the language well indeed. (Might an arrogant American viewpoint, but that could be said about most of this post. Sorry.)
Or this gentleman, who writes:
Hello Osprey Design
I just came across your blog, which I’m now feeding via RSS thank you very much.
I am a [insert skill set here] and I’m looking for tips on how to get into book cover design. I would appreciate any helpful tips, resources, etc… that you could share to help me go forward.
Heh. Reminds me a little of this, when Amanda set me up to meet Chip Kidd in New York after I’d just finished and exhibited The Playmakers. One of the fond memories from my marriage — thank you, Amanda — Chip was very gracious to some wet-behind-the-ears book designer jerk still trying to figure out what he wanted (wants) from life.
He did then — and continues to, thank you Chip, and thank you Todd for the awesome post that triggered his most recent visit — do what I’ve always tried to do here, which is exactly what was requested: “share to help … go forward.” That’s why it’s called Foreword — it’s a play on books and “moving the ball,” as a friend says. (But then, you all knew that. Right? Right? Anyone? Okay, sorry, it’s late.)
So to Ben, the other guy, and the countless others that write, I’m sorry I didn’t answer you personally, and I’m truly honored you looked to me — and Foreword — for advice. Look around, search the posts, review the categories. Stay tuned for the refreshed web site (yeah, I’m really working on it), when it’ll be even easier to find stuff. I don’t mean to be impolite. I’m already doing everything I can with the few scaps of time I can put together — doing what you request. What we all seek. A quest forward to an expertise in book design.
Most importantly, know that I’m eager to share and absolutely welcome work or (better) links be sent along. But. Give me more to work with than just “how do I…?” Give me a reason to find a minute to post about it. Please!
“Success,” however you measure it, is up to each and every one of us to achieve, according to our own standards. Even if I don’t say it often enough — and I surely don’t — thank you, thank you, for trying to move forward, uh, Foreword, here.
If you’ve made it this far, hats off. Take the next step: leave a comment. This site gets more than five thousand real (read: nonspam) views daily, on average, and pathetically few comments. Most of that’s my fault; I just don’t have the time to actively participate in as many discussions as I’d like. (Here, Flickr, another blog, real life, wherever.)
To Ben and everyone, I keep hoping discussions will take off on their own. Post a comment to an entry that you’re interested in. People can keep track of topics with the “Discussions” links at the top of the page. I’ll do my best to keep up with the comment moderation. And, when the new web site’s implemented, it’ll have code for TypeKey users (a Movable Type thing — yet, yet another post) and code to recognize frequent commenters and approve them automatically so moderation’s delays will matter less.
Thanks for bearing with me, for reading Foreword, for being passionate about book design (and photography, perhaps), and, especially, for helping to build a community for all of us for move forward.
Be sure to read the follow-ups. Thanks.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, January 19, 2006, at 4:18 AM.
Posted to Advertising | Book and design blogs | Book cover photography | Book design | Books | Books, design, art | Business | Design | Flickr | Jobs | Love | Personal | Photography | Site news | Whatever | Writing
Thanks, Monica
For the second time this week, I’m posting at four-something in the morning — without client approval. Heh. Feeling naughty:
See a larger version here. Done at the request of Dr. Monica Young-Zook as a follow-up to last year’s well-received effort.
Very happy to be using a photograph I took instead of iStock, too. Cart that camera with me everywhere for a reason — this photo’s a hand-held snapshot taken during a holiday party.
Monica and her husband, Dan, are near the top of the list of reasons I settled in Maon. Glad she’s making sure that, now that I’m here, I don’t get complacent…;)
Bonus: discovered Be a Design Group through their group on Flickr. Sweet.
Posted by Giles, Saturday, January 14, 2006, at 4:16 AM.
Posted to Art | Book and design blogs | Design | Flickr | Photography | Type and typography